[Pan-users] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fit image to Window

[Duncan]

Mike Brodbelt posted <address@hidden>, excerpted
below,  on Fri, 22 Oct 2004 00:00:22 +0100:

> I would say that Pan is, in part, a victim of it's own success. I've
> used it in more or less it's current form for quote a while now, and it
> does pretty much everything I need it to. That being the case, there's
> no particularly pressing itch to scratch. Now I could easily come up
> with a list of features I'd like to see added (better scoring, binary
> posting, filtering on currently unsupported headers), but there's
> nothing that's really critical there.

I've thought along those lines myself. If you look at the goals and the
original name, "Pimp Ass Newsreader",  PAN has a quite a way to get to
where it can really claim to have met that.

What I've wondered if happened, was that (probably originally b4 Charles,
with the original developer, check the credits) PAN quickly became better
than most other Linux alternatives, with what was never intended to be any
more than preliminary "demo" code.  As it got better, it quickly gained
popularity, thus creating an update dilemma, chance breaking what was
after all never intended to be "final" code, and leaving stranded all
those users, in ordered to continue to advance, or advance much more
cautiously due to all those users potentially left in the lurch, slowing
down development to the point where the original goal became essentially
impossible, and becoming much more "work" supporting a slower advancing
application, than "fun" developing features until feature complete,
without worrying so much about bugs right away, particularly those
affecting a small segment of the user base that with such popularity is
never-the-less a lot of people.

If that were even somewhat the case, it would explain a lot of stuff,
including PAN's scalability problems, as well as the apparent loss of
interest or anyway priority of the lead developer, when he eventually
discovered he was "mired in quicksand" due to all those users, and that it
was no longer "fun" because the original goal to which he had aspired
looked to now be out of reach.

Not being that lead developer, I of course cannot say that such HAS been
the case, but it WOULD explain some things.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
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